


Rough

by GemFrost



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gay Romance, LGBT Romance, M/M, Romance, m/m romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2019-03-21 08:37:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13737168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GemFrost/pseuds/GemFrost
Summary: Every week he comes into the bar where I work, and every week he just sits there morosely sipping his Guinness, and rebuffing all my friendly overtures. He's the most gorgeous guy I've ever seen, and I'd like to spend some time with him, and maybe even take him home.  But it's as if he has invisible stone walls around him. What is this guy's problem, anyway?And how can I break down those walls... and get to know him better?A gay romance.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have several books available on Amazon, but I realized I miss writing serial romances. I'm writing this one on both AO3 and Wattpad. Updates every Monday. You can visit me at:
> 
> http://gemfrostromance.blog

Copyright 2018 by Gem Frost.

_Sawyer_

“He’s a little rough around the edges.”

I snorted as I cleared an empty beer mug off the bar’s shining mahogany surface. “That’s a hell of an understatement, Jenny. He’s an asshole.”

“I’ll admit he’s kind of, well, _rude._ ” Jennifer Stanton, owner of O’Reilly’s, poured a Guinness stout and slid it over to me. “But at least he tips well.”

“The last time he was in here, he reduced Tiffani to tears. Twice. Just because a guy’s a generous tipper doesn’t give him the right to pick on the staff, or put his hands all over them.”

“Hands? Ha.” Jennifer deftly put together a classic martini—Beefeater gin and dry vermouth, with an olive—and handed it to a guy at the bar, flashing her warmest smile. She was an older woman, her once-dark hair streaked with silver, and her smile made people feel at home. “That, at least, is not one of his issues. Haven’t you heard? The man’s a monk.”

I stole a surreptitious glance at the guy. He was alone—he was always alone—and I’d never seen him hit on anyone, so maybe Jenny was right. Maybe he was celibate. But if so, that seemed like a terrible waste, because he was really something to look at. He wore a black Led Zeppelin t-shirt and tattered jeans that clung to his muscled frame tightly, leaving nothing to the imagination—and when it comes to hot guys, I have a _hell_ of a good imagination. He was broad-shouldered, slim-waisted, and long-legged, a combination that would ordinarily have made me very eager indeed to take that Guinness over to him.

But he’d been coming into O’Reilly’s pretty regularly for about a month, and I’d already had enough encounters with him to know that I didn’t want anything to do with him. He was entirely too much like his favored drink… dark and bitter.

“What’s his name? Does he even have a name?”

“Not sure of his first name,” she answered, “but his last name’s Riddick. The girls call him Big Dick.”

I choked on air. “Because…”

“Get your mind out of the gutter, Sawyer. I told you, he’s a monk. If he’s packing a big one, none of us have seen it. Big Dick’s a reference to his personality, not his equipment.”

A chuckle escaped me. “It suits him.”

“Look,” she said, giving me her patented stern-yet-fond Mom look, “someone’s got to take that Guinness to him. None of the girls want anything to do with him, so it needs to be you.”

My own mother died fifteen years ago, when I was only sixteen, and you’d think I’d be immune to the Mom look. But apparently I wasn’t, because I sighed, and put the mug onto a tray, along with a few other drinks. “Fine,” I grumbled.

_What the hell. At least he tips well._

I made my way slowly around the room, dropping off some girly drinks (a strawberry daiquiri, a sangria, and a Blue Hawaiian) and flirting with the ladies who’d ordered them along the way. Women aren’t my thing, but flirting helps increase the tips, so I’ve learned to fake it pretty well. At last I paused by Big Dick’s table.

He looked up at me, silent and unfriendly as always. Up close he was so stunning he almost took my breath away. His eyes were the dark, fathomless blue of the Atlantic, his overgrown hair Kahlua-brown. His chiseled jawline was covered with dark stubble, so thick it could almost be called a beard, as if he’d forgotten to shave for the past week or so. It suited him.

He looked like the baddest of bad boys, as hot as a July day in hell, and despite myself I could feel my heart pounding, could feel the beginnings of lust swirling down my spine and gathering deep in my balls.

 _Down, boy,_ I told myself firmly. After all, he might look like a male model, but he was the devil incarnate. Besides, if Jenny was right, he was celibate, which meant he wasn’t my kind of guy at all.

 _Maybe he’s married,_ I thought, and snuck a look at his left hand. But it was free of a wedding ring, or even the telltale dent of one that had been removed. My heart pounded a little faster.

“Your Guinness, sir,” I said, and placed it in front of him.

He didn’t bother with thanking me, just lifted it to his lips and took a long sip. I should’ve been relieved—because with this guy, a stony silence was preferable to speech—but I don’t appreciate being treated like part of the furniture by my customers. And I especially resented being ignored by this gorgeous man, for reasons I didn’t care to examine too closely. I couldn’t resist tweaking him, just a bit.

“Having a nice evening, sir?”

He lifted his eyes to mine. They seemed a deeper blue than ever, like storm-tossed ocean waves. Dark… and dangerous.

“It was okay,” he rumbled, in his low baritone, “until you started talking.”

_Jesus Christ. This guy is definitely well-named. What a big dick._

“Sorry, sir. Didn’t mean to disturb you.” I plastered on my Customer Service Smile. In my line of work you learn to smile even while the bar patrons are kicking you in the teeth. It sucks, but it’s part of the job. “How is the Guinness?”

“Not interested,” he said, and looked down, staring into the dark depths of his drink.

I frowned, confused. “Sorry?”

“I’ve seen how you work. Flirting. Like with those women over there. But with men, too. Not interested. I’m straight.”

The way he talked was odd, like he spat out barely enough words to get his meaning across. As if he couldn’t be troubled to bother creating coherent sentences. But peculiar though his syntax was, the sparse words were enough to annoy me. I could feel the Customer Service Smile slipping and my hackles rising.

“Asking how your drink is,” I said through my teeth, “is not flirting. It’s basic courtesy.”

He didn’t bother to look up and meet my eyes again, just stared morosely into his drink.

“I don’t like _basic courtesy,_ ” he said. “Leave me the fuck alone.”

The Customer Service Smile had completely faded by this point, and so had the heat in my balls. I’d been right, I thought. This guy was a world-class asshole. No wonder he was always alone. Who’d want to hang out with this jerkwad?

I pressed my lips together, turned my back on him, and stalked back to the bar.

“The next Guinness he orders,” I informed Jenny, “is going straight into his hair.”


	2. Chapter 2

_Jax_

I like to be alone, most of the time. Which is why it was weird that I'd started spending so much time in this bar. _McGrath's,_ read the gold letters on the glass door, and beneath that: _The Friendliest Place in Town!_

I hated friendly places. I hated friendly _people._

So I should really hate the gorgeous bartender. I'd scared off all the women in the place a while ago, but the bartender kept trying. He was very definitely a friendly person. Also, he was almost unbearably beautiful, with high cheekbones, a straight nose, and a jawline that could have been hewn out of marble with a chisel... but only by a really, really talented sculptor. He also had long hair, the color of mid-July. He had it gathered up into a ponytail for work, but it looked like if he put it down it would fall in a golden, shimmering cloud down to his shoulders, like thunderheads touched by early morning sunlight

I wanted to see it that way.

I wanted to see him, _any_ way.

Stupid. There was no reason for me to hyperfocus on the guy. Sure, he was good-looking, and sure, I liked guys just as well as I liked girls. But there were plenty of people in this bar who'd probably go home with me, if I made the slightest effort to be civil. (Not something I'm good at, but I can do it if I try really hard.) Every Friday the place was filled with women in tight jeans and men in leather jackets, all flirting with anything that moved.

And yet every Friday I came in... and watched Blondie like he was the only other person in the room.

I knew what it was, of course. I wanted to sketch him. I had sketched him, at home, any number of times. But even with my memory, damn close to photographic, I couldn't get the aristocratic shape of his nose and the regal lift of his head quite right. Annoying. 

What I needed was for him to come home with me.

Not like that. I mean, yes, like that. But also, I needed him to pose for me, so I could draw the exact picture I wanted. My inability to get it exactly right had been gnawing at me, a rodent nibbling hungrily at my insides, since the first night I'd seen him, then gone home and sketched till two in the morning.

I needed to look at him all over. To run my hands over him so I knew every detail by heart.

I needed him. 

Need was bugging the crap out of me. Since Jenna, I wasn't used to needing, or wanting. I was usually okay on my own, by myself. I had an apartment and paint and sketchbooks. Didn't need anything else, not really. Not saying I never had anyone over to sketch over bare skin with fingers, but they usually didn't stay long. Which was okay. I didn't need anyone. Didn't want to need him.

So I glared at him when he came by my table, and gave him my best _fuck off_ look.

Because wanting him so much was really, really irritating.

***

The night was black, touched with purple shadows, as I went out the door of McGrath's and into the warm, thick blanket of dark. I didn't drive; didn't need it in a small town and I didn't like going fast anyway. When you went fast, you missed too much. Even in darkness there's so much to see.

I headed down the sidewalk, a concrete river that led toward home, and pulled my leather jacket around me tighter. Chilly for May, and the cold touched my neck and crept downward like the slow slide of a melting ice cube. Around me the streetlamps washed away the purple, casting sickly puke-colored pools of light. Noise flowed around me, the flock of people that hung out around the bars on Friday like geese around a pond, gabbling. The sound of crowds talking always bothered me, static in my ears, or too many radios playing at once. Hard to pick out any one voice.

Which was why his voice, ringing clear like a knife against crystal, startled me.

"Need a ride?"

I turned and saw the bartender, grinning at me from a car colored like my tenth birthday, happy and bright. Car caught my eye, along with that grin-- I'd been very rude to him earlier, and I'd meant to be, so why would he smile at me like that?-- but what I noticed right afterward was his hair. No more ponytail. Flowing around his face and onto his shoulders, sunlight let loose with a vengeance.

I tried for my _fuck off_ look, but for some reason it just didn't work. Opened my mouth to say something sharp, to keep him at a safe distance with stabbing knife-words, but what came out was something else entirely.

"Sure," I said.


End file.
